


Paper Dolls

by LiterallyThePresident



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Weirdly inspired by the Goosebumps movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 15:22:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7579267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiterallyThePresident/pseuds/LiterallyThePresident
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She always burned every paper after she finished writing, just in case. Her family would never be taken from her, never be trapped, never learn the truth of their existence.</p><p>They would be horrified if they found out. So they must never find out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paper Dolls

Hera was a young girl when she first discovered her gift. She'd been lying on the floor, bored, miserably bored. Bored enough to doodle on the old paper she'd swiped from her father's desk. You didn't see paper anymore, and Hera was fascinated by the texture, the sound it made, how it held together even yellowed with age. She wished she could share this discovery with someone, but all the kids were out playing and Hera was grounded. They would probably make fun of her anyway, ask her what it had to do with the ships she was always talking about.

She wanted a real friend. Someone besides her family and the boring neighborhood kids to talk to, someone who wouldn't be afraid to be mean when she got carried away, someone who would be honest when she asked "How do I look?", someone who could keep up with her when she talked about ships.

Her teacher said that writing your dreams down would help them come true. Hera located an old pencil in her father's desk, right where he'd kept the paper. It was like the universe wanted her to write, and who was she to refuse? She wrote it all down, every detail she could imagine about her ideal friend. The paper was covered in writing by the time she was done and her mother was calling her for lunch.

She met the droid that day, buried and screaming in a pile of scrap.

The droid, who she named Chopper, was exactly the kind of friend Hera wanted. He was loud and loyal and never sugar coated anything. He kept Hera on her toes, he helped her with her projects, he cheered her on when she beat up bullies. He was everything she'd wished for, everything she'd ever wanted in a friend.

Everything she'd written on that paper.

Her gift didn't work on a datapad, she soon learned, it had to be paper. And she was pretty sure she couldn't control the people's appearance or anything like that, and she was too afraid to try it again. No matter how much she loved Chopper, she couldn't help but feel like she had done something bad, something she wasn't supposed to do.

She started carrying paper around with her, just in case. She took it with her when she left Ryloth for good, joining the Resistance with nothing but a ship and a dream. They soon proved themselves invaluable to the Resistance and made a name for themselves among the Imperials.

For a time, things were perfect. Just Hera and Chopper, two best friends against the Empire.

But soon the lonely nights with only the grumpy droid for company started to take its toll on Hera. The void outside her window seemed darker and the stars less comforting as each day passed.

Late one night she picked up her pencil, swallowing down the nervousness, the feeling that what she was doing was wrong, unnatural. She closed her eyes, and she imagined her dream companion. It would be a man, she decided. Kind and tender but wild, a man with a sense of humor who would always know just what to say to her. The kind of man whom she could easily fall in love with, a man who would think the galaxy of her.

She spent hours on him before going to bed, fidgeting in anticipation and a hint of fear and shame.

Her dream boy was not at all what Hera expected. For one, he was human. A drunk one at that, with messy hair and a cavalier, too laid back attitude. But those eyes. She recognized them as soon as he turned them on her. The very depth and promise she had written the night before. Teal eyes, just like her mother's, gazing at her with far too much hidden pain for his age.

He wasn't perfect, he didn't have to be. He was what she needed. And before she knew it, he'd become what she wanted more than almost anything. They had their adventure on Gorse, and strangely enough the revelation of his status as a Jedi didn't phase her. They stuck together, spending two years in blissful companionship, dodging blaster fire, narrowly escaping death, patching each other up afterwards, holding each other in the blackness of space.

Hera only picked up the paper again out of curiosity. A desire to see if she still had the gift. She wrote about an old imaginary friend she'd had when she was little. A big strong warrior who loved to beat up bullies and crack jokes, but was still gentle and caring.

Nothing happened that night when they stopped at a rebel base, and it was with a sense of profound disappointment that Hera concluded that she must have lost her gift. Kanan asked her what was wrong, she couldn't bring herself to tell him. She held him tightly that night, suddenly terrified he would disappear.

He didn't. But she grabbed his hand as they stepped into a cantina the next afternoon and a bottle came flying at her head, followed by a loud, cheerful, slightly slurred apology and a large purple hand patting her shoulder.

Garazeb Orrelios was brash and gruff and violent, not at all the type of company she usually craved. But Kanan took to him immediately, they traded war stories and fighting techniques and bonded over the shared pain of loss. Garazeb, or Zeb as he nonchalantly told him to call them, was a reckless brute, taking unnecessary risks and charging into battle head on before any sort of plan was formulated, seeming to have no preference to whether he lived or died.

It annoyed Hera at first, and worried and angered Kanan, but Zeb stubbornly refused to explain himself to them. Until one night in the heat of an argument it had all come pouring out. The lasat massacre, Zeb's lucky survival, watching his entire people and culture up in flames, losing his _planet_. Hera had cried that night. What right did _she_ have to bring Zeb into this world and imbue him with such pain? She would have to work double time to even begin to try and make it up to him.

She wished she could erase the pain in his eyes when he thought no one was looking. The pain was far too similar to Kanan's and Hera wondered time and time again if she was being selfish.

It was exactly one year after they found Zeb when Hera gave in again. She and Kanan were making their way to their shared quarters, Kanan laughing at something she'd said when she spotted the lasat out of the corner of her eye. Zeb, their Zeb, sitting dejectedly in the common area, ears flat as he toyed absently with his bo rifle.

Alone.

The gears started turning and despite how much she wished she hadn't, she thought of how easy it would be to ease his loneliness. She lay awake that night, watching Kanan. Searching his familiar features for any sign that he wasn't real, any indication of artificiality. Wondering where she would be now if she hadn't written him into existence.

She wanted someone for Zeb to take care of. Someone to keep him company, protect him from the worst of Chopper's pranks, and maybe teach him to be a little more social. Chopper wasn't exactly the one for the job, and Hera _was_ wanting for female company, a ship full of males could get tedious. Surely it couldn't be awful for her to just create one more person. Just so Zeb wouldn't be lonely when she and Kanan were lost in each other.

Hera had once tried to rescue a runaway imperial cadet. She had failed, and the cadet had died, but this time would be different. This time Hera wouldn't let that runaway cadet fall to the Empire. She would make up for it, atone for her mistake and give her family a new addition. Two lyleks with one stone.

They met their newest addition that night, _another_ human, with colorful hair and a deceptively cheerful smile. She'd graffitied the side of the Ghost, laughing and dodging Chopper's indignant blasts. She may have gotten away from them too, had Kanan not appeared. And it may have come to blows had Imperials not decided to attack, and girl seemed genuinely surprised when they fought with her.

The fight was quick and Sabine Wren sized them up suspiciously afterward. It was tense for a few moments but it was Zeb who eventually convinced her to roll with them for a while, just like Hera knew he would. She adjusted pretty quickly, her only real conditions being that she have her own room and be allowed to create her art with no restrictions. She was relatively peaceful for a Mandalorian, and she and Zeb quickly became thick as thieves. Many a night Kanan bemoaned their antics and the embarrassing art he'd found in his caf mug that morning. Their battles got a lot more colorful and Zeb got a tiny bit less reckless with Sabine there to smack him.

Months passed in a flurry of missions and near misses. The crew grew closer, and Hera was content. _This_ was the family she'd always wanted. She couldn't imagine it getting any better.

Her and Kanan's anniversary was coming up soon. And they had no credits, supplies were low, and no missions were forthcoming. Hera had nothing to give him. He would insist that she didn't need to, but she adored the soft smile on his face whenever she did.

She glanced at the paper she always told herself she'd get rid of, never use again. It was in her hands, lying innocently, almost beckoning her. She felt sick, nauseated that she was even _thinking_ about this. But the more she thought about it, rationalized it, the more it began to make a sick sort of sense.

Her Kanan needed a student. Someone he could pass his knowledge on to, someone to help him preserve the Jedi way he so missed. Try as he might to deny it, his past was important to him. His regret at his perceived failures and his shame at running from his Master ate away at him, no matter how hard he tried to pretend it didn't. A student could give him an outlet, a way to direct all that regret and anger and turn it into something good. A student could make Kanan happy. The student _would_ make Kanan happy.

Hera sat in her and Kanan's quarters while the raucous laughter of her family filtered in from the other room, Kanan's holocron beside her. Kenobi's message of hope played and Hera wrote the story of the one who would embody it.

Ezra Bridger was everything Hera had imagined, everything Kanan could need. Young and lost and angry at the world, so in need of guidance. Bright eyed and sharp-tongued with a hidden compassionate side, Hera was thrilled that she could create someone so beautiful.

He was perfect for Kanan.

He revealed his ability in the Force and Hera saw the gears start to turn behind Kanan's eyes, the eyes she knew so well, the eyes she gave him. She smiled when he took the boy in, beamed when he spent long hours coming up with training activities, trying to remember his own. There were times when Ezra was all Kanan could talk about and Hera felt a sense of joy at seeing her lover so happy with her gift. She didn't expect their bond to be so strong, nor did she expect to get so attached to the kid herself. But he eventually wormed his way into all their hearts, became a vital and necessary part of their crew, their family. Hera didn't regret a thing.

She always burned every paper after she finished writing, just in case. Her family would never be taken from her, never be trapped, never learn the truth of their existence.

They would be horrified if they found out. So they must never find out.

She stuffed the paper under the hidden panel in the wall, just like she always did, vowing that this was the last time. No more playing Goddess. Just like she always did.

Kanan called for her, Ezra wanted to show her a new trick he'd learned. She finished hiding the paper and stood up, letting the sound of her family milling about the ship fill her ears for a moment.

She brushed away the nauseous feeling she'd grown used to.

**Author's Note:**

> It's 3 am.


End file.
